Néstor Braunstein

Néstor Alberto Braunstein (1941 – 2022) was an Argentine-Mexican physician, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Braunstein was born in Bell Ville. He graduated as a physician in 1962, at the age of 20, and received his M.D. in 1965 from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, where he taught at college level as early as 1959. In 1974 he was forced into exile for political and academic reasons and moved to Mexico where he worked as a psychiatrist in different public institutions for the treatment of both children and adults. Braunstein was a naturalized citizen of Mexico. He was a studies professor, a practicing psychoanalyst and an active writer. Nestor Braunstein died on September 7, 2022 in Spain. In 1978 he was banned from his duties and positions in all Mexican psychiatric institutions because of his critical epistemological views on the official taxonomies of the so-called mental illnesses (then DSM-III and CIE-10). Immediately after arriving in Mexico he published (with some chapters written by Marcelo Pasternac, Frida Saal and Gloria Benedito): Psicología: Ideología y ciencia in which he demolishes academic psychology and denounces its conceit as a true science. Instead, Braunstein proposed psychoanalysis as an alternative and as a methodological tool to deal with human subjectivity and to redirect the study of psychology. The book had enormous success: 24 editions were printed between 1975 and 2008 (more than 70,000 copies sold). This work helped to change the ideological landscape in almost every school of psychology in Spanish speaking countries of Latin America and the author was invited to lecture about his ideas on psychology and psychoanalysis to commemorate the 20th, 25th and 30th anniversary of the first edition of the book. In 1980 he published a pioneering book dealing with Lacanian psychoanalysis, the first to appear in Mexico, Psiquiatría, teoría del sujeto, psicoanálisis. (Hacia Lacan) which was also received with general acclaim; 14 editions were printed and is widely read, referred to and quoted.